Welcome to the USA, here’s your free Obamacare

WelcometoUSA.gov, the website that spoon-feeds all the information new immigrants need to become dependent on government financial assistance, will now be even easier to navigate, complete with new information on the Affordable Care Act. Yay.

In the November post, “Welcome to the USA, here’s your check,” I wrote, “While not surprising, it’s infuriating to see the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services promoting government benefits (read: welfare) to new immigrants.”

The website has a “Government Benefits” tab at the top, and along with links to “all available federal benefit programs” like Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps, the site used to say:

Depending on your immigration status, length of time in the United States, and income, you may be eligible for some federal benefit programs. Government assistance programs can be critically important to the well-being of some immigrants and their families. Frequently, however, there is a lack of information about how to access such benefits. Benefit programs can be complicated and you may be given misleading information about how they operate.

The immigration agency’s spokesman, Chris Bentley, told The Daily Caller it was working to make the website easier for its “audience” to use and understand. So the “Government Benefits” page now simply reads, “Depending on your immigration status, length of time in the United States, and income, you may be eligible for some federal benefit programs.”

Bentley said there would soon be a section explaining Obamacare to new immigrants, too.

In November, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., issued a statement calling for Homeland Security to “remove any sections of its website, and any portions of its materials for new arrivals, that promote or encourage welfare reliance.”

When Sessions heard that the site would now include a section on health care, he told the Daily Caller:

The administration’s determination to place immigrants on federal assistance, including the President’s health law, will add trillions to the cost of any amnesty. It is wrong and unfair to ask Americans to pay higher taxes and bear more debt in order to provide free benefits to legal and illegal immigrants. Such a policy weakens growth and undermines the core legal and economic principle of immigration – that you should be able to establish before you come here that you are financially self-sufficient.

According to the article, the agency said work on the website had been “an ongoing project.” But what perfect timing with President Obama’s new immigration reform on the table, don’t you think?

"And though she be but little, she is fierce." And fun! This conservative-minded political junkie, mom of three, dancer and one-time NFL cheerleader holds a bachelor of arts degree in political science. [email protected] Twitter: @JaneenBPR